July 13, 2008
Another one down
Lucky Star 4 in the can. Bit of an awkward volume - the new characters start showing up one after the other, but we don't really have a good read on most of them yet (saving Yu-chan, who's cute as a button). Felt pretty good, though. Back to Ayakashi for a week or so, then on to the next LS...
A quick peek over at the Saimoe prelims suggests that the Hayate characters will be riding high this year. Hey, no objections here.
Took the opportunity this weekend to plow through some more Clannad. Definitely like the feel of it a little more than I did Kanon. It's moving away from the "one heartwrenching story after another" paradigm, and putting more zany humor in. Still six episodes to go, and I'm interested to see how it's going to resolve the story. Kanon did so largely through a process of attrition, but Clannad's not getting -rid- of anybody (and doesn't look like it's gonna start, heh.) All of the characters are starting to get the idea that there's going to be a big romantic pile-up near the end...
To all outward indications, my former employer, ADV, is bleeding out. Ah well. I don't know if there's anything there that's left saving, possibly excepting Matt and the Houston voice talent. Things definitely got overextended, and honestly, the market's changed; you can't use a scattershot release strategy these days and hope to get lucky every so often.
The Anime on DVD folks are focusing on Funi potentially licensing ADV's work on a couple of the shows left hanging, such as Kanon or NHK (both one volume away from done). Speculation seems to be that ADV would prefer a package deal, where they get an agreement to keep working on the other titles as well. Honestly, I can't see Funi agreeing to that. ADV still has at least a little cash flow from old licenses, so it's hard to estimate what would be enough to make it worth ADV's time, but not so much that it would allow them to get their feet back under them and get back in the licensing business... which I'm sure Funi would hate to see. In the end, re-doing a couple of volumes' worth of dubs (even if you're driving VAs from Houston to Dallas) isn't that expensive.
A quick peek over at the Saimoe prelims suggests that the Hayate characters will be riding high this year. Hey, no objections here.
Took the opportunity this weekend to plow through some more Clannad. Definitely like the feel of it a little more than I did Kanon. It's moving away from the "one heartwrenching story after another" paradigm, and putting more zany humor in. Still six episodes to go, and I'm interested to see how it's going to resolve the story. Kanon did so largely through a process of attrition, but Clannad's not getting -rid- of anybody (and doesn't look like it's gonna start, heh.) All of the characters are starting to get the idea that there's going to be a big romantic pile-up near the end...
To all outward indications, my former employer, ADV, is bleeding out. Ah well. I don't know if there's anything there that's left saving, possibly excepting Matt and the Houston voice talent. Things definitely got overextended, and honestly, the market's changed; you can't use a scattershot release strategy these days and hope to get lucky every so often.
The Anime on DVD folks are focusing on Funi potentially licensing ADV's work on a couple of the shows left hanging, such as Kanon or NHK (both one volume away from done). Speculation seems to be that ADV would prefer a package deal, where they get an agreement to keep working on the other titles as well. Honestly, I can't see Funi agreeing to that. ADV still has at least a little cash flow from old licenses, so it's hard to estimate what would be enough to make it worth ADV's time, but not so much that it would allow them to get their feet back under them and get back in the licensing business... which I'm sure Funi would hate to see. In the end, re-doing a couple of volumes' worth of dubs (even if you're driving VAs from Houston to Dallas) isn't that expensive.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
10:07 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 393 words, total size 2 kb.
July 08, 2008
Back in the saddle
Spent the last couple of weeks working on odd projects, neither of which I can talk about yet. Now that they're out of the way, it's back to Lucky Star vol. 4.
Early reactions have come in pretty well. One hilarious report details the Japanese reaction to the Lucky Star dub, as evinced by Nico Nico Douga postings (consensus: Tsukasa in English is moe!)
On the up side, I'm better than halfway through the series, and so theoretically it's all downhill from here. However, now, instead of dealing with charming karaoke endings, I have yet more Shiraishi...
Early reactions have come in pretty well. One hilarious report details the Japanese reaction to the Lucky Star dub, as evinced by Nico Nico Douga postings (consensus: Tsukasa in English is moe!)
On the up side, I'm better than halfway through the series, and so theoretically it's all downhill from here. However, now, instead of dealing with charming karaoke endings, I have yet more Shiraishi...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
11:01 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 101 words, total size 1 kb.
July 02, 2008
Saimoe 2008 - It's That Time Again
Man, time does fly.
I won't be starting up comprehensive Saimoe coverage just yet. Definitely burned out last year, by the final few rounds, and I'm not keen on having that happen again. So I'll be taking it easy until the tourney proper starts - experience shows that any character with even the least hope of advancement will plow through the preliminary rounds anyway.
For those who are interested, the Animesuki Saimoe Thread is already covering the initial nominations (which will wrap up in the next couple of days). For those unfamiliar with the basic rules, any female character can be nominated, though it's limited to human or human-like characters (so Rein is okay, but Raising Heart isn't.) As usual, there are people busily trying hard so that every female in every qualifying anime is nominated, without regard to moe at all, so honestly, I wouldn't worry too much.
Once they announce brackets and all, I'll see about posting a big list of schedules and entrants, but don't expect the day-by-day stuff until the prelims are over, unless I see something really humorous. ;p
I won't be starting up comprehensive Saimoe coverage just yet. Definitely burned out last year, by the final few rounds, and I'm not keen on having that happen again. So I'll be taking it easy until the tourney proper starts - experience shows that any character with even the least hope of advancement will plow through the preliminary rounds anyway.
For those who are interested, the Animesuki Saimoe Thread is already covering the initial nominations (which will wrap up in the next couple of days). For those unfamiliar with the basic rules, any female character can be nominated, though it's limited to human or human-like characters (so Rein is okay, but Raising Heart isn't.) As usual, there are people busily trying hard so that every female in every qualifying anime is nominated, without regard to moe at all, so honestly, I wouldn't worry too much.
Once they announce brackets and all, I'll see about posting a big list of schedules and entrants, but don't expect the day-by-day stuff until the prelims are over, unless I see something really humorous. ;p
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
09:35 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 191 words, total size 1 kb.
June 30, 2008
Plans somewhat interrputed
Been thin on the ground lately. My parents were planning to come up and spend a day visiting before proceeding to North Carolina with my grandparents to see my uncle; instead, all parties are in town for the funeral of my grandmother's sister. No condolences necessary - I hardly knew her, she's been very ill for decades, and so it's probably all for the best. Does cut down on my free time somewhat, however.
So are the folks going to do about the vacation? Two days by car to go see someone who you haven't seen in a few years is a lot more reasonable than the same time spent to see someone who you literally just saw, especially since he'll be here in town until Friday anyway. But on the other hand, are they going to just turn around and go home, or do something else to burn the vacation time, or hang out here?
(I'm kind of hoping it's not "hang out here". I get along famously with my parents, but while they're here, I'm sleeping on my futon, which is not the most comfortable thing in the world; bought a new couch, but it won't be here for a couple of weeks yet.)
Oh, yeah, turned 30 Saturday. Sigh...
The subtitling is currently bouncing between Ayashi and a couple of little projects that I can't talk about yet, with Lucky Star lurking in the background. Bunch of stuff in the "one day away from done once we hear back from the client" phase, if you know what I mean. Ah well...
On the up side, there's a camera at the house, so if I can tonight, I'll take some pictures of the new figures.
So are the folks going to do about the vacation? Two days by car to go see someone who you haven't seen in a few years is a lot more reasonable than the same time spent to see someone who you literally just saw, especially since he'll be here in town until Friday anyway. But on the other hand, are they going to just turn around and go home, or do something else to burn the vacation time, or hang out here?
(I'm kind of hoping it's not "hang out here". I get along famously with my parents, but while they're here, I'm sleeping on my futon, which is not the most comfortable thing in the world; bought a new couch, but it won't be here for a couple of weeks yet.)
Oh, yeah, turned 30 Saturday. Sigh...
The subtitling is currently bouncing between Ayashi and a couple of little projects that I can't talk about yet, with Lucky Star lurking in the background. Bunch of stuff in the "one day away from done once we hear back from the client" phase, if you know what I mean. Ah well...
On the up side, there's a camera at the house, so if I can tonight, I'll take some pictures of the new figures.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
12:31 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 290 words, total size 2 kb.
June 20, 2008
Back up for air
Sorry about the thin posting lately. The blame lies entirely with Minoru Shiraishi.
Read this at Steven's blog this morning. Fortunately, as a Texan, I've a ready response to the sentiment that people outside the US ought to have a say in its government... "If you think your country should have a role in the selection of the US government and US policy, just have it apply to become a US state or states."
Seriously, it's a package deal. Want the US franchise? It comes with US citizenship, the world's best constitution, and your taxes won't be very high either. You'll even have a relatively autonomous local (i.e. state) government to take care of local affairs...
But if you want to be sovereign, and not an American, well... go ahead, but don't expect us to let you vote on anything we do. ;p
Read this at Steven's blog this morning. Fortunately, as a Texan, I've a ready response to the sentiment that people outside the US ought to have a say in its government... "If you think your country should have a role in the selection of the US government and US policy, just have it apply to become a US state or states."
Seriously, it's a package deal. Want the US franchise? It comes with US citizenship, the world's best constitution, and your taxes won't be very high either. You'll even have a relatively autonomous local (i.e. state) government to take care of local affairs...
But if you want to be sovereign, and not an American, well... go ahead, but don't expect us to let you vote on anything we do. ;p
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
08:33 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 147 words, total size 1 kb.
May 31, 2008
A-Kon, in all its faded glory
Didn't spend much time at A-Kon this year, but I feel good about it.
It's always been a bit of an outlier - a big con run by people who would be much happier running a science fiction convention, who once did run a SF convention that later died, and who rolled the SF elements into the anime con. Come on, the guests of honor are Nabeshin and David Drake, not that the latter isn't one of my favorite authors or anything. It's got a reputation as an annoying, poorly-managed affair, though heroic efforts on the part of the video staff keep that running smoothly (and I'm not just saying that because all the folks I know are on video staff!)
First time I've been able to attend a con in a while where I didn't have any kind of financial restraint to worry about, so I splurged a little. Figure-heavy, picking up the GSC Nanoha, the Kaiyodo Rin and Dark Saber (who are currently locked in mortal combat over the monitor), a lil' Asakura I got out of a random Haruhi box, and a nice no-glasses Yuki that I got 'cause it was cheap. (And the Reinforce Zwei figure came in the mail this week, too...)
Non-figure swag includes a lot of manga I'd been meaning to get, the Haruhi and Gundam Zeta series on DVD, some Order of the Stick books, and quite a few pencil boards to join the collection. I use these things as cube/office decoration, and as a kind of secondary resume - so I only put up ones from shows I've worked on in the past. This year's haul includes Shin Getter, Steam Detectives, Orphen, and a nice Sakura Wars one.
Tough to socialize at the event, though. Relatively few of my random friends from online attend A-Kon in the first place - if they're going to travel to a con, they go to Otakon or AX or maybe Central or Boston. The friends I have on staff are all, of course, insanely busy and on the edge of breakdown trying to keep things lurching along; bad time to throw in with them unless I want to grab a cable and haul, and honestly, I know better than that these days. The ADV friends are all back in Houston, or voice actors with their own busy schedules as guests. So I figured that sliding in, borrowing a badge from video ops, doing a bit of work for form's sake, and throwing money around in the dealer's room was probably a good day.
Doesn't help that it's Texas hot (actually not a bad day, by local standards, but not exactly comfortable) and that the hotel's air conditioning is fatally overtaxed by the huge crowds. It just ain't very -comfy- to hang around.
All that said, I had a good time. It was nice to sit back and people-watch at a con where I didn't have any obligations or a schedule to keep. Lots of neat costumes, of course; the usual Wolfwoods and Ryogas and the like, enough Soul Reapers to put on a Bleach musical, and apparently 680+ video game costumers gathered to break the record for "most video game character costumes worn in the same place", which was previously 80 and thus must not have been trying very hard.
It felt like there was a spring of fandom there, though, a different kind than the sort one associates with online on the public fora. These were a bunch of people there to have fun, not to pose in dramatic postmodern fashion and decry the onrushing death of the industry or how every anime made in the last ten years is lousy or which fansubber said which unbelievable thing today. It was honestly invigorating to drop in and bathe in that atmosphere, metaphorically speaking. Or maybe I'm just happy to have spent some money. Some of both, probably...
It's always been a bit of an outlier - a big con run by people who would be much happier running a science fiction convention, who once did run a SF convention that later died, and who rolled the SF elements into the anime con. Come on, the guests of honor are Nabeshin and David Drake, not that the latter isn't one of my favorite authors or anything. It's got a reputation as an annoying, poorly-managed affair, though heroic efforts on the part of the video staff keep that running smoothly (and I'm not just saying that because all the folks I know are on video staff!)
First time I've been able to attend a con in a while where I didn't have any kind of financial restraint to worry about, so I splurged a little. Figure-heavy, picking up the GSC Nanoha, the Kaiyodo Rin and Dark Saber (who are currently locked in mortal combat over the monitor), a lil' Asakura I got out of a random Haruhi box, and a nice no-glasses Yuki that I got 'cause it was cheap. (And the Reinforce Zwei figure came in the mail this week, too...)
Non-figure swag includes a lot of manga I'd been meaning to get, the Haruhi and Gundam Zeta series on DVD, some Order of the Stick books, and quite a few pencil boards to join the collection. I use these things as cube/office decoration, and as a kind of secondary resume - so I only put up ones from shows I've worked on in the past. This year's haul includes Shin Getter, Steam Detectives, Orphen, and a nice Sakura Wars one.
Tough to socialize at the event, though. Relatively few of my random friends from online attend A-Kon in the first place - if they're going to travel to a con, they go to Otakon or AX or maybe Central or Boston. The friends I have on staff are all, of course, insanely busy and on the edge of breakdown trying to keep things lurching along; bad time to throw in with them unless I want to grab a cable and haul, and honestly, I know better than that these days. The ADV friends are all back in Houston, or voice actors with their own busy schedules as guests. So I figured that sliding in, borrowing a badge from video ops, doing a bit of work for form's sake, and throwing money around in the dealer's room was probably a good day.
Doesn't help that it's Texas hot (actually not a bad day, by local standards, but not exactly comfortable) and that the hotel's air conditioning is fatally overtaxed by the huge crowds. It just ain't very -comfy- to hang around.
All that said, I had a good time. It was nice to sit back and people-watch at a con where I didn't have any obligations or a schedule to keep. Lots of neat costumes, of course; the usual Wolfwoods and Ryogas and the like, enough Soul Reapers to put on a Bleach musical, and apparently 680+ video game costumers gathered to break the record for "most video game character costumes worn in the same place", which was previously 80 and thus must not have been trying very hard.
It felt like there was a spring of fandom there, though, a different kind than the sort one associates with online on the public fora. These were a bunch of people there to have fun, not to pose in dramatic postmodern fashion and decry the onrushing death of the industry or how every anime made in the last ten years is lousy or which fansubber said which unbelievable thing today. It was honestly invigorating to drop in and bathe in that atmosphere, metaphorically speaking. Or maybe I'm just happy to have spent some money. Some of both, probably...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
06:49 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 659 words, total size 4 kb.
May 28, 2008
A new home away from home
Finally, a computer! I've only been here three weeks, after all. At least the office is fairly lenient about what you can run, so I've got access to the normal communication cloud. Ought to make the work hours pass more happily (and productively, for that matter).
Just got a chunk of Lucky Star extras. 13-minute segments, 450 lines -each-. Good freakin' God. When you're at a higher density than a manic episode of Excel Saga, there are issues. When you're almost twice as manic, you've surpassed merely nuts, and entering the "geez, we need to talk about this billing by the video minute thing" zone. More Shiraishi, but at least it's Shiraishi being abused mercilessly, so that's not too bad...
Also, moe Yutaka is moe. That is all.
Just got a chunk of Lucky Star extras. 13-minute segments, 450 lines -each-. Good freakin' God. When you're at a higher density than a manic episode of Excel Saga, there are issues. When you're almost twice as manic, you've surpassed merely nuts, and entering the "geez, we need to talk about this billing by the video minute thing" zone. More Shiraishi, but at least it's Shiraishi being abused mercilessly, so that's not too bad...
Also, moe Yutaka is moe. That is all.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
03:11 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 134 words, total size 1 kb.
Dee
May 20, 2008
Zombie mode
But still shufflin' along...
Came home from work yesterday and slammed in a solid six hours of subtitle processing to kick out two volumes of Ayashi. Oyyy. Got some sleep, but I could use an extra hour or two. With any luck today won't be particularly productive anyway, as they've finally managed to pry my PC loose from the impromptu work-processing cluster it'd been tasked to.
Author's got some constructive commentary about the Lucky Star subtitles. (This is how the rest of what I've been doing lately looks too, for that matter.) There's a couple of screen shots from Dai-Guard up for comparison.
It's definitely true that the fonts I'm going with nowadays are thicker with less border, proportionately speaking. Part of that is just a limitation of the equipment I'm using, in that it tends to pack vertical lines pretty closely as it is. This means that there's some vertical overlap between the very bottom of the top line and the very top of the bottom line. That's fine and dandy, but when I'm dealing with multiple subtitles, I have to drag those things around in Photoshop, where realistically I'm dealing with square box tools; more border would mean that two adjacent lines would really run into each other (and be very difficult to separate if necessary - as it is, I'm obliged to break out the eraser tool some.) Unfortunately, my DVD subtitle generation tool doesn't have the flexibility to increase the line kerning a little, which would remove that problem.
Would be no big deal if I could afford the Wincaps installation - not to mention last night's work would have been reduced to a few minutes of button-pushing - but I can't shell out that kind of money with the current work load. Ah well. If I had commitments for three or four series down the road, I'd just go get a business loan and be done, but as a freelance contractor, that ain't how it works...
Now it's time to get rollin' on the next volume of Lucky Star. Already scripted an ep with 600+ subtitles, not counting the OP. Gurk!
Came home from work yesterday and slammed in a solid six hours of subtitle processing to kick out two volumes of Ayashi. Oyyy. Got some sleep, but I could use an extra hour or two. With any luck today won't be particularly productive anyway, as they've finally managed to pry my PC loose from the impromptu work-processing cluster it'd been tasked to.
Author's got some constructive commentary about the Lucky Star subtitles. (This is how the rest of what I've been doing lately looks too, for that matter.) There's a couple of screen shots from Dai-Guard up for comparison.
It's definitely true that the fonts I'm going with nowadays are thicker with less border, proportionately speaking. Part of that is just a limitation of the equipment I'm using, in that it tends to pack vertical lines pretty closely as it is. This means that there's some vertical overlap between the very bottom of the top line and the very top of the bottom line. That's fine and dandy, but when I'm dealing with multiple subtitles, I have to drag those things around in Photoshop, where realistically I'm dealing with square box tools; more border would mean that two adjacent lines would really run into each other (and be very difficult to separate if necessary - as it is, I'm obliged to break out the eraser tool some.) Unfortunately, my DVD subtitle generation tool doesn't have the flexibility to increase the line kerning a little, which would remove that problem.
Would be no big deal if I could afford the Wincaps installation - not to mention last night's work would have been reduced to a few minutes of button-pushing - but I can't shell out that kind of money with the current work load. Ah well. If I had commitments for three or four series down the road, I'd just go get a business loan and be done, but as a freelance contractor, that ain't how it works...
Now it's time to get rollin' on the next volume of Lucky Star. Already scripted an ep with 600+ subtitles, not counting the OP. Gurk!
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
07:28 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 358 words, total size 2 kb.
May 13, 2008
DSL for the loss
No, not terribly happy with AT&T's "fiber to the curb" service so far.
Well, I can't fault the people involved. Their technicians have been nice and responded quickly to resolve an issue. It's just that I've only had the install since Thursday and I've already had an issue that gives me pause...
The upstream bandwidth is, frankly, pathetic. It's about three times slower than my cable modem was back in Houston, which isn't ordinarily too terrible, but really kicks me in the shorts when it comes to uploading big files... say, like, completed subtitles! Time Warner is in the process of wiring up the apartment complex, and frankly, I think I may go ahead and switch when they get ready.
The day job's been plenty busy. Scary that I'm training new guys... I mean, c'mon, I -am- a new guy. ;p
Popped in a volume of Angelic Layer a couple of days ago. I'd forgotten how much plain ol' fun that show was to watch. Definitely a good story for getting away from "the world is about to be destroyed!" themes every so often.
Well, I can't fault the people involved. Their technicians have been nice and responded quickly to resolve an issue. It's just that I've only had the install since Thursday and I've already had an issue that gives me pause...
The upstream bandwidth is, frankly, pathetic. It's about three times slower than my cable modem was back in Houston, which isn't ordinarily too terrible, but really kicks me in the shorts when it comes to uploading big files... say, like, completed subtitles! Time Warner is in the process of wiring up the apartment complex, and frankly, I think I may go ahead and switch when they get ready.
The day job's been plenty busy. Scary that I'm training new guys... I mean, c'mon, I -am- a new guy. ;p
Popped in a volume of Angelic Layer a couple of days ago. I'd forgotten how much plain ol' fun that show was to watch. Definitely a good story for getting away from "the world is about to be destroyed!" themes every so often.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
09:30 PM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
Post contains 188 words, total size 1 kb.
May 08, 2008
Up and runnin'
Disaster nearly averted this morning. AT&T DSL guy shows up for the install, we locate an already-installed jack sitting behind a bookshelf, wire it up... and none of the pre-installation wiring that's supposed to have taken place has actually taken place. They can't find the order at all. They can't even find the order to have the guy come out here, so it's a minor miracle that he made it, I suppose! ;p
However, the appropriate work was completed and I'm indeed online today. Huzzah.
Richardson's pretty nice so far, though I'll have to save specifics for a bit later - might as well head on into work, now that I have the opportunity.
However, the appropriate work was completed and I'm indeed online today. Huzzah.
Richardson's pretty nice so far, though I'll have to save specifics for a bit later - might as well head on into work, now that I have the opportunity.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
02:08 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 117 words, total size 1 kb.
May 01, 2008
Leavin' Houston
Packing's finished and I'm leaving for Dallas on Friday. Considered
picking up a USB wireless adapter to attempt to surf off a nearby
wireless point to cover the gap, but it seems silly to spend the money
for only a couple of days. So I'll just be incommunicado until then (or
maybe not, depending on what the internet use policy is at the new job.
Ain't TOO restrictive, given the friend of mine that's there, but on
the other hand he's an experienced IT hand, so there's no telling what
line they make the grunts toe, huh? ;p)
There's just a little stress associated with the move. I've lived in Houston all my life, so I'm pretty familiar with it; I know the neighborhoods that I shouldn't go into, the out-of-the-way comic shops, the good Lebanese restaurant off Hillcroft, where the traffic bunches up on all the freeways. I'd be hard-pressed to identify the interstates going through Dallas without a map. I'll have to go hunting for everything - and while some things won't be a problem (friends in the city), some things I'll have to find for myself (nearest grocery store, the gas stations, some place to get buffalo wings).
Ironically, I found Half Price Books even before I took the job - passed it going to lunch during the interview. Well, there's one less thing to worry about!
At any rate, here's hoping for good weather and an easy drive, and that I can get the PC together, find some sort of service for HD now that I've got this new LCD, and get situated without anything going too severely wrong. See y'all next Thursday, if'n not before.
There's just a little stress associated with the move. I've lived in Houston all my life, so I'm pretty familiar with it; I know the neighborhoods that I shouldn't go into, the out-of-the-way comic shops, the good Lebanese restaurant off Hillcroft, where the traffic bunches up on all the freeways. I'd be hard-pressed to identify the interstates going through Dallas without a map. I'll have to go hunting for everything - and while some things won't be a problem (friends in the city), some things I'll have to find for myself (nearest grocery store, the gas stations, some place to get buffalo wings).
Ironically, I found Half Price Books even before I took the job - passed it going to lunch during the interview. Well, there's one less thing to worry about!
At any rate, here's hoping for good weather and an easy drive, and that I can get the PC together, find some sort of service for HD now that I've got this new LCD, and get situated without anything going too severely wrong. See y'all next Thursday, if'n not before.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
12:51 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 282 words, total size 2 kb.
April 28, 2008
More stupid statistics
Saw this in a recent article, purporting that "Generation Y" is financially illiterate... "People between the ages of 25 and 34 make up 22.7% of all U.S.
bankruptcies (but just 14% of the population at large), according to a
recent report."
There's a real problem with this statistic. Can you guess what it is?
That's right... children don't go bankrupt. Their parents might, but the number of people under 20 undergoing bankruptcy should be an infinitesimally small percentage of all bankruptcies.
A quick look reveals that 27.4% of all Americans are under the age of 20. So what happens if we examine the percentage of bankruptcies for people between 25 and 34 relative to the adult population as a whole? Basically, they're 19.3% of the adult population.
So, while it's true that people between 25 and 34 have bankruptcies at a higher rate than the adult population, it's only a couple of percentage points. In other words, it's not evidence of anything, much less some kind of widespread financial irresponsibility that, of course, previous generations didn't experience at all... (Yeah, that's you, hippies. We're talking about you!)
There's a real problem with this statistic. Can you guess what it is?
That's right... children don't go bankrupt. Their parents might, but the number of people under 20 undergoing bankruptcy should be an infinitesimally small percentage of all bankruptcies.
A quick look reveals that 27.4% of all Americans are under the age of 20. So what happens if we examine the percentage of bankruptcies for people between 25 and 34 relative to the adult population as a whole? Basically, they're 19.3% of the adult population.
So, while it's true that people between 25 and 34 have bankruptcies at a higher rate than the adult population, it's only a couple of percentage points. In other words, it's not evidence of anything, much less some kind of widespread financial irresponsibility that, of course, previous generations didn't experience at all... (Yeah, that's you, hippies. We're talking about you!)
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
03:02 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 190 words, total size 1 kb.
April 22, 2008
Back from Dallas
Well, I've managed to locate a new apartment. Short commute, an extra bedroom I can convert into an office, and a nice, quiet neighborhood... now I just need to hire moving crews and finish packing up, get all the utilities turned on, change all my addresses, and finish another batch of subtitling. But hey, no pressure... ;p
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
05:30 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 60 words, total size 1 kb.
April 18, 2008
Upcoming move
The new job has come through, so I'll be relocating to Dallas in a couple of weeks. This is, as you may have guessed, a little bit complicated.
The packing situation is... scary. I've packed up seven boxes. For my efforts, one bookshelf stands empty (the other four, alas, do not, nor does the dresser stuffed with manga), and I've packed up most of the anime box sets that hang out on the top of various bookshelves. This is going to become quite a few boxes before we're done.
Shouldn't be too much problem overall, though. U-haul truck, hire a crew here to pack stuff from this room (most of the furniture stays, only the desk, the TV stand, and the bookshelves go), load up the ol' 8x10 storage unit that contains most of my actual furniture, drive to Dallas, hire a crew to unload at the new apartment.
Of course, there is as of yet no "new apartment". That's Monday's job. Got a list of candidates (and Richardson looks like a nice part of town, and my income's enough I can afford to go the two-bedroom route, make myself a home office, and write the second bedroom off on taxes). With luck, I'll have an apartment and utilities hooked up before I need to move in...
Any moving advice, of course, would be greatly appreciated. Anyone live in the Dallas area?
The packing situation is... scary. I've packed up seven boxes. For my efforts, one bookshelf stands empty (the other four, alas, do not, nor does the dresser stuffed with manga), and I've packed up most of the anime box sets that hang out on the top of various bookshelves. This is going to become quite a few boxes before we're done.
Shouldn't be too much problem overall, though. U-haul truck, hire a crew here to pack stuff from this room (most of the furniture stays, only the desk, the TV stand, and the bookshelves go), load up the ol' 8x10 storage unit that contains most of my actual furniture, drive to Dallas, hire a crew to unload at the new apartment.
Of course, there is as of yet no "new apartment". That's Monday's job. Got a list of candidates (and Richardson looks like a nice part of town, and my income's enough I can afford to go the two-bedroom route, make myself a home office, and write the second bedroom off on taxes). With luck, I'll have an apartment and utilities hooked up before I need to move in...
Any moving advice, of course, would be greatly appreciated. Anyone live in the Dallas area?
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
12:10 AM
| Comments (11)
| Add Comment
Post contains 234 words, total size 1 kb.
April 12, 2008
West Coast follies
It's Friday night, almost 1 AM, and the drinking party has moved indoors for the evening. Weather continues fine. Lovely dinner with Author, which was even more fun than expected, and I'm hoping that he'll be happy with how Lucky Star's coming out. ;p
Accepted a job offer this morning, so in a couple of weeks, I'll be relocating to Dallas, to work at a data discovery firm there. Should be pretty interesting, though busy busy. Interesting times...
Accepted a job offer this morning, so in a couple of weeks, I'll be relocating to Dallas, to work at a data discovery firm there. Should be pretty interesting, though busy busy. Interesting times...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
01:58 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 81 words, total size 1 kb.
April 10, 2008
Flight delay
Yesterday's flight was a bit of an ordeal. Supposed to leave at 6 PM, ended up taking off around 10 PM. Dunno what happened to the plane we were supposed to be on, but the one we ended up on was pretty obviously pulled out of mothballs for the occasion - old CRT monitors, old-style headrests, stuff like that. Got in around 12:30 PDT.
Ah well. Weather's great, and no work to do (or rather, there is some, but I'm having trouble getting vdubmod to re-encode these h264s on this system... must have something installed at home that I haven't done on this machine. Anyone have anything to suggest?)
Ah well. Weather's great, and no work to do (or rather, there is some, but I'm having trouble getting vdubmod to re-encode these h264s on this system... must have something installed at home that I haven't done on this machine. Anyone have anything to suggest?)
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
01:11 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 111 words, total size 1 kb.
April 08, 2008
On a jet plane
Headed for California tomorrow. Brother's living in Berkeley with his fiancee, so I'm dropping in on them for a few days.
But before leaving, I managed to finish off the second volume of Lucky Star. Real marathon to process - two Shiraishi extras, and it's not like a 500-line LS episode is trivial even on a good day. Doing something a little experimental with it, though...
The client noted that a lot of the scenes seemed to have the characters totally obscured - either because overlapping subtitles came up into the main part of the screen, or because the scene had everything clustered right at the bottom and empty space everywhere else. Thus, when you're watching it subtitled, you can't really... see anything. This is always a possible downside, of course, but with Lucky Star, there's damn near always some sort of speech going on, and so they asked me, was there anything I could do about it?
So I'm trying to split overlapping dialogue up to the top of the screen, so that the subtitles for the TV in the background aren't obscuring everything. Also, when I hit one of those scenes where all the stuff to be seen is sitting right at the bottom, I yanked the subtitles into the empty space at the top.
Ordinarily I wouldn't do that. For one thing, it's a pain in the butt on my end to process. ;p Also, though, there's the problem of eye attention - if you're busy trying to find where the subtitle is on the screen, you're neither reading the subtitle nor enjoying the visuals, and it takes a bit for you to light on the correct spot... and with the speed of one of these episodes, you don't always have that much time to start with.
But the visual problem is real, too. In a show where a lot of the appeal is watching the cute moe characters and their reactions, not being able to see those reactions is a pretty big problem.
So what do people think? I hate to play games with the subtitle positioning - not when I'm not using a WYSIWYG system, and I don't have enough work to plunk down for a Wincaps box at this juncture. But it seems to be an improvement from a first watch here... and hell's bells, like there's someone else out there that's going to do it? I'd like to think that I'm the best at what I do, after all, even if that's a subjective topic. However, I'll be damned if there's anyone out there who's crazy enough to top me on this stuff...
But there will be no color-changing karaoke. Ever. EVER. At least, not with this DVD spec...
But before leaving, I managed to finish off the second volume of Lucky Star. Real marathon to process - two Shiraishi extras, and it's not like a 500-line LS episode is trivial even on a good day. Doing something a little experimental with it, though...
The client noted that a lot of the scenes seemed to have the characters totally obscured - either because overlapping subtitles came up into the main part of the screen, or because the scene had everything clustered right at the bottom and empty space everywhere else. Thus, when you're watching it subtitled, you can't really... see anything. This is always a possible downside, of course, but with Lucky Star, there's damn near always some sort of speech going on, and so they asked me, was there anything I could do about it?
So I'm trying to split overlapping dialogue up to the top of the screen, so that the subtitles for the TV in the background aren't obscuring everything. Also, when I hit one of those scenes where all the stuff to be seen is sitting right at the bottom, I yanked the subtitles into the empty space at the top.
Ordinarily I wouldn't do that. For one thing, it's a pain in the butt on my end to process. ;p Also, though, there's the problem of eye attention - if you're busy trying to find where the subtitle is on the screen, you're neither reading the subtitle nor enjoying the visuals, and it takes a bit for you to light on the correct spot... and with the speed of one of these episodes, you don't always have that much time to start with.
But the visual problem is real, too. In a show where a lot of the appeal is watching the cute moe characters and their reactions, not being able to see those reactions is a pretty big problem.
So what do people think? I hate to play games with the subtitle positioning - not when I'm not using a WYSIWYG system, and I don't have enough work to plunk down for a Wincaps box at this juncture. But it seems to be an improvement from a first watch here... and hell's bells, like there's someone else out there that's going to do it? I'd like to think that I'm the best at what I do, after all, even if that's a subjective topic. However, I'll be damned if there's anyone out there who's crazy enough to top me on this stuff...
But there will be no color-changing karaoke. Ever. EVER. At least, not with this DVD spec...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
09:13 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 460 words, total size 3 kb.
Author on Lawson
Saw this, and at this point I'd rather open up my own stomach than go back to yet another Minoru Shiraishi video extra that has to be done before morning... Lawson comments about people's general lack of knowledge about anime, the conflation of studio brand name with quality, and Author smacks him a bit for letting the ego show. Well, we're all about ego here! ;p
Seriously, though, of course fans don't know anything about the business aspects of anime. They're totally opaque to the observer. There is no place from which a wise and learned seeker of truth can pick up on that information. Those who know will not talk to you. Not just "about that" - they probably won't talk to you period. Hey, if you've been in the industry for a decade, you know better than to talk to damned anime fans... there's nothing but abuse in it, and you can't tell them anything good anyway, so why bother?
Hell, it's not like my knowledge of what's going on is encyclopedic either. I have just enough of a clue to appreciate my no-clue, if you know what I mean...
Really, who cares whether people are properly appreciating the creative minds behind the work? Sure, there's going to be a few names that stick in the head, people who have a distinctive style that just clicks with you (or, alternatively, doesn't); outside of that, it's trivia. Nobody cares who directed DN Angel any more than they care if I subtitled a show, Shoko translated it, or Chris Borque ran the audio mix. Not that none of these things matter to the final quality of the show, but don't kid yourself into thinking that it matters to the people buying the show.
At the end of the day, most anime is overwhelmingly dependent on the quality of the source material from which it springs; even if it diverges from, or considerably fills out that material, the imprint is still upon it, as it were. It is very, very difficult to make a good show out of a crap manga. So of course people know more about the sources - that information is a great deal more useful for the primary purpose of knowing that kind of information, which is being able to predict whether a show will be any good or not!
Studio is a useful barometer as well, mostly because it tends to agglomerate several people (though, as Lawson points out, there's plenty of creative types who've worked with several different studios on different projects.) People don't like Kyoani just because it's had a few recent hits - they like it because it's taken several projects that could have been done well, or could have been done poorly, and done them well (and often in a self-aware way that lets them pull off stunts like the Nagato scene, heh.) Not only that, but it has a long series of hits with no strikeouts, which few studios other than Ghibli can boast about. So "this show is a Kyoani production" is useful information to a fan - it translates to "it has pretty good production values and a very low chance of sucking". Maybe they'll make a bunch of crap and our opinion of it will go down... but it's not like "which studio made the show" would suddenly become useless information.
Hell, if you're going to rant, why not rant about people paying attention to the domestic staff, who at least have names you can pronounce, and who you might actually be able to affect in some way? There's plenty of translators in the industry not worth their salt, and good ones on the beach because the mediocre ones have all the work. But does anybody complain? No, can't be bothered...
So yeah, what about it? Creative minds are underappreciated. Even the people who go further than the first layer or two of the onion never really get close to the center (the ugly meat of the business reality that lies at the heart of a project... or is supposed to, heh.) That's life. It's not going to be helped. There's not even anything wrong with it, really - we're watching anime, not writing a doctoral dissertation on Eva.
And back to the silly voice actor who's become his own meme, jumping up and down and singing for the audience's... delight...
Seriously, though, of course fans don't know anything about the business aspects of anime. They're totally opaque to the observer. There is no place from which a wise and learned seeker of truth can pick up on that information. Those who know will not talk to you. Not just "about that" - they probably won't talk to you period. Hey, if you've been in the industry for a decade, you know better than to talk to damned anime fans... there's nothing but abuse in it, and you can't tell them anything good anyway, so why bother?
Hell, it's not like my knowledge of what's going on is encyclopedic either. I have just enough of a clue to appreciate my no-clue, if you know what I mean...
Really, who cares whether people are properly appreciating the creative minds behind the work? Sure, there's going to be a few names that stick in the head, people who have a distinctive style that just clicks with you (or, alternatively, doesn't); outside of that, it's trivia. Nobody cares who directed DN Angel any more than they care if I subtitled a show, Shoko translated it, or Chris Borque ran the audio mix. Not that none of these things matter to the final quality of the show, but don't kid yourself into thinking that it matters to the people buying the show.
At the end of the day, most anime is overwhelmingly dependent on the quality of the source material from which it springs; even if it diverges from, or considerably fills out that material, the imprint is still upon it, as it were. It is very, very difficult to make a good show out of a crap manga. So of course people know more about the sources - that information is a great deal more useful for the primary purpose of knowing that kind of information, which is being able to predict whether a show will be any good or not!
Studio is a useful barometer as well, mostly because it tends to agglomerate several people (though, as Lawson points out, there's plenty of creative types who've worked with several different studios on different projects.) People don't like Kyoani just because it's had a few recent hits - they like it because it's taken several projects that could have been done well, or could have been done poorly, and done them well (and often in a self-aware way that lets them pull off stunts like the Nagato scene, heh.) Not only that, but it has a long series of hits with no strikeouts, which few studios other than Ghibli can boast about. So "this show is a Kyoani production" is useful information to a fan - it translates to "it has pretty good production values and a very low chance of sucking". Maybe they'll make a bunch of crap and our opinion of it will go down... but it's not like "which studio made the show" would suddenly become useless information.
Hell, if you're going to rant, why not rant about people paying attention to the domestic staff, who at least have names you can pronounce, and who you might actually be able to affect in some way? There's plenty of translators in the industry not worth their salt, and good ones on the beach because the mediocre ones have all the work. But does anybody complain? No, can't be bothered...
So yeah, what about it? Creative minds are underappreciated. Even the people who go further than the first layer or two of the onion never really get close to the center (the ugly meat of the business reality that lies at the heart of a project... or is supposed to, heh.) That's life. It's not going to be helped. There's not even anything wrong with it, really - we're watching anime, not writing a doctoral dissertation on Eva.
And back to the silly voice actor who's become his own meme, jumping up and down and singing for the audience's... delight...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
12:00 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 736 words, total size 4 kb.
March 30, 2008
Spring season preview
Some kind nico-nico user posted an amalgamation of all the previews for next season's anime here. (Japanese page, login required, though if you can puzzle out their registration link, it's a free reg.)
I went through and started listing out impressions, but honestly, I don't have a whole lot to say. Nothing looks "so awesome I will camp out for it", and nobody wants to read that I'm not watching 30 different shows. Still, it doesn't look spectacularly bad or anything, and there's plenty in there that'd be worth a watch if it's animated well enough.
I went through and started listing out impressions, but honestly, I don't have a whole lot to say. Nothing looks "so awesome I will camp out for it", and nobody wants to read that I'm not watching 30 different shows. Still, it doesn't look spectacularly bad or anything, and there's plenty in there that'd be worth a watch if it's animated well enough.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
05:21 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 99 words, total size 1 kb.
March 26, 2008
Night owl
I've never been much of a morning person, really. I prefer seeing dawn only before going to bed, not after waking up. Rolling out of bed around noon is much more my style.
Can't complain from a work perspective, though - knocked out three episodes of Ayakashi Ayashi today, easy as pie. Interesting show so far, though it seems to be going through a procession of character introduction arcs. We've already seen the main character (the guy who pulls weapons out of kanji) and the little Mexican girl (gotta love those Texan samurai... no, seriously, the show has them!), followed by the reverse trap (though in this show, there's just about 0% fanservice.)
Next up looks to be the boss, who's a student of Western learning - not an entirely good thing to be in the early 1800s in Japan. I actually just reviewed this period of history, and it's fascinating how the country tried to ignore modernity, and then seized it with both hands and rode it for all it was worth when that wasn't an option anymore. Fascinating period, both before and after the bakumatsu that's been covered by Kenshin and by Peacemaker. The sort of history I could really sink my teeth into...
...except that Shoko has already thoughtfully, and exhaustively, researched everything in advance, so there's nothing left for me to do. ;p Beats the alternatives, I suppose! (Hey, if you're going to do a historical piece, get the history right. And it's a huge bonus when the translator goes the extra mile on things like correctly spelling Aztec deities' names, though we went down that road before with the Mayans and RahXephon...)
So my reward for outrageous productivity is... well, more Lucky Star to work on, which is a "watch what you wish for" title if there ever was one. And a pile of filthy lucre, I guess, which I shouldn't complain about...
Can't complain from a work perspective, though - knocked out three episodes of Ayakashi Ayashi today, easy as pie. Interesting show so far, though it seems to be going through a procession of character introduction arcs. We've already seen the main character (the guy who pulls weapons out of kanji) and the little Mexican girl (gotta love those Texan samurai... no, seriously, the show has them!), followed by the reverse trap (though in this show, there's just about 0% fanservice.)
Next up looks to be the boss, who's a student of Western learning - not an entirely good thing to be in the early 1800s in Japan. I actually just reviewed this period of history, and it's fascinating how the country tried to ignore modernity, and then seized it with both hands and rode it for all it was worth when that wasn't an option anymore. Fascinating period, both before and after the bakumatsu that's been covered by Kenshin and by Peacemaker. The sort of history I could really sink my teeth into...
...except that Shoko has already thoughtfully, and exhaustively, researched everything in advance, so there's nothing left for me to do. ;p Beats the alternatives, I suppose! (Hey, if you're going to do a historical piece, get the history right. And it's a huge bonus when the translator goes the extra mile on things like correctly spelling Aztec deities' names, though we went down that road before with the Mayans and RahXephon...)
So my reward for outrageous productivity is... well, more Lucky Star to work on, which is a "watch what you wish for" title if there ever was one. And a pile of filthy lucre, I guess, which I shouldn't complain about...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
04:09 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 320 words, total size 2 kb.
86kb generated in CPU 0.128, elapsed 0.4186 seconds.
47 queries taking 0.3701 seconds, 143 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
47 queries taking 0.3701 seconds, 143 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
